The Burning Skies

left on their screens. That thing out there is basically a directed-energy machine gun. A hundred klicks is basically a turkey shoot.

“Evasive action!” screams the captain.

But Spencer’s already giving it all he’s got. The Platform veers crazily in the window. Spencer feeds in instructions from the gunnery officer, lets the ship’s batteries rip, peppering the Helios with fire while more shots streak in from the few remaining emplacements on the asteroids and the surviving ships.

“Target remains eighty-five percent effective,” says the gunnery officer calmly.

“Use the fucking Platform!” shouts the navigator. “Use the fucking Platform!”

And Spencer’s trying—doing his utmost to keep the Platform between him and this monster—trying to pop out and fire and then dart back into cover. But those kinds of precision maneuvers are pretty much beyond the capacity of this ship now. He watches clouds of humans starting to billow from the northern end of the Platform. He realizes with sick finality that there’s no way out of this. He slams his visor. Just as a microwave spear impales them.

The Praetorians aren’t moving. But the Operative can see they’re standing at attention anyway. He can see their eyes shifting in their visors as they cease their private conversations. He’s getting instructions now too.

“Relay these to your men,” says the Hand.

“Listen to this,” the Operative says to Sarmax and Lynx.

The Hand is now moving away from the inner deck. The Manilishi is following him. The Hand’s bodyguards cluster about both of them. Soldiers start exiting the room as they receive specific tactical instructions. The Operative hears engines starting up at close range—from the sound of it, the mechanized units of the Praetorians on the outer perimeter. Beyond that he hears only the rumbling of explosions within the cylinder.

But now that changes.

Spencer’s aware of some kind of roaring noise. His brain feels like it’s been burned to a crisp. He can see nothing but white light. He wishes the afterlife was less painful.

But now that white is fading into the black of space. He focuses, realizes the window’s gone, along with the rest of the bridge. Somehow he’s been blasted about twenty meters farther back into the ship. He’s wedged in beneath some debris, his suit somehow still intact. Dead bodies are everywhere. So are those of the living, clinging to what’s left of the walls. Vibration keeps on washing through him. The engines of the ship are going haywire. And now the Platform comes into sight, careening in toward them. Metal surface fills Spencer’s view. He braces himself as though it still mattered.

T HIS IS THE HAND. THIS IS BEING BROADCAST ON SECURE CHANNEL ENABLED BY THE MANILISHI, THE RAZOR NOW AT MY SIDE. YOU’RE TO PROTECT HER AS YOU PROTECT ME. THE DECISIVE BATTLE IS UNDER WAY. OUR THRONE IS TRAPPED BY RAIN COMMANDOS IN THE NEAREST OF THE AERIES. WE’RE GOING TO CROSS THE CYLINDER AND RESCUE OUR PRESIDENT. WE’RE GOING TO DESTROY THE ABOMINATION CALLED RAIN. DETAILED TACTICAL OVERLAYS TO FOLLOW .

The Operative receives those overlays for his team, relays them to Lynx and Sarmax.

“This is fucking it,” says Sarmax.

“Straight shot to glory,” says Lynx.

“Let’s move out,” says the Operative.

But even as he says those words, the whole cylinder shakes—shakes still harder, shakes like it’s breaking apart. About ten klicks distant in that wilderness of dark and tracer lines, one of the valleys ruptures into flame. What’s left of a burning spaceship bursts through, pulling ground and metal with it, falling back onto what’s left of that ground, shredding itself and everything around it as what’s left of its engines keep on firing.

“That’s a new one,” says Sarmax.

PART II HEAVEN'S RUNNER

Waking up. Pain washing against you. Vibration rumbling through you. Visor pressed up against your face, your back pressed up against some wall, your mind feeling like it’s coming apart: Where are you? How did you get here?

And what the hell are you going to do next?

Spencer opens his eyes. It doesn’t help. Everything’s still dark. Everything hurts. But at least he’s breathing. Vibration keeps on shaking the surface beneath him. He switches on his suit-lights—realizes they aren’t working. He turns on his comlinks, finds only static. He figures he’s somewhere in the remains of the Larissa V. Which, judging by the gravity, must have crashed onto the cylinder. He tries to access zone, but he can’t find a trace of it.

So he starts crawling forward, tracing his way along the wall. He pushes his way through debris, stumbles into something that feels like a shattered suit. He slides through something slick—crawls past it, hits another wall: a corner. He starts tracing his way along the new wall, which ends suddenly, in some jagged edge. Somewhere past that edge is a flickering light. Spencer moves through the hole, crawls carefully toward that light. He’s got one hand out in front of him, probing to make sure there’s still a floor beneath him.

He’s in luck. There is. The light keeps swelling. As he gets closer he can see it’s somewhere past the edge of yet another tear in yet another wall. He’s starting to see a bit more of the environment he’s in. It’s one of the ship’s interior hangars. The hole’s not that far ahead now, a glow framed by metal walls. Spencer crawls off at an angle, gets against that wall, makes his way along it. He reaches it, peers through.

And wishes he hadn’t.

He’s looking up through darkness toward the central axis of the cylinder—staring at thousands of burning bodies scattered about. Euro civilians caught in the crossfire that’s raged through this part of the cylinder —or who just got blasted into limbo from whatever surface they were trying to escape over. Apparently there’s still enough oxygen left up there to keep the fires going.

For now at least. But as Spencer pulls himself out of the hole and onto the top of the spaceship’s hull, he can see all too clearly that’s not going to last very long. It’s the biggest fucking mess he’s ever seen. Artificial ground’s piled up all around where the Larissa V plowed through it. Twisted metal structures in the middle distance conceal all function they once had. Past them is more fire—or rather, images of those overhead flames flickering on the remains of some shattered, kilometer-long shard of mirror. Beyond that’s only darkness. Spencer’s pretty sure that’s the direction of the cylinder’s South Pole and the Aerie. He remembers the asteroid being on their right as they made their final run toward the Platform.

Meaning New London should be on his left. But if it’s still there, there’s no sign of it. There’s every sign of combat, though. Most of which looks to be several klicks away. It’s spread out on a broad front across the width of the cylinder: flashes of lasers and flaring explosions that cast shadows reaching all the way to the valleys far overhead. It’s like some giant elongated cloud, moving toward Spencer at speed. He ponders this.

But then he sees movement that’s much closer.

Terrain whipping by. Shots flying everywhere. Tactical overlays adjusting as data pours in from all sides. The view from the Operative’s visor is framed by at least a hundred screens. He’s moving at just under 200